1. Technical Field
One or more embodiments relate to systems and methods for providing media content to multiple users. More specifically, one or more embodiments of the present invention relate to systems and methods for distributing media content among multiple users.
2. Background and Relevant Art
Through advancements in computing devices and computing technology, users can often share user-generated media with other users. As such, users are increasingly capturing and sharing experiences using various computing devices. For example, modern mobile devices enable users to capture and share pictures, videos, and text with co-users (e.g., family members, co-workers, friends, or with the public at large). For instance, a user can share user-generated content with a group of friends via a variety of communication systems (e.g., IM, text, or social networks).
Despite advances in technology, a number of drawbacks remain for a user wanting to share user-generated media with other users. For example, conventional communication systems that allow users to share user-generated media often provide a cluttered and confusing presentation of the shared content. To illustrate, a user can create a new media post upon sharing a picture or video with a group of co-users. One or more co-users in the group may respond to the post by sharing another picture or video with the group. Accordingly, the user, the co-user, and other co-users in the group can continue to share pictures and/or videos under the original post. As the number of shared pictures and shared videos increase, conventional systems typically create a list of response posts, and thus the list of responses can become long, cluttered, and difficult to navigate.
Another disadvantage of conventional systems is that many conventional systems are directed toward media posts that are individualistic in nature. In other words, a thread of posts between multiple users focuses on interactions between the individual user that created the post and the other co-users interacting with the user, rather than a group of users interacting with each other as a group. Thus, many conventional systems do not provide an environment where a group of users can co-create and share group-created media with each other.
Some conventional systems that allow users to share user-generated media with other users attempt to reduce interface clutter by removing, deleting, or denying additional access to shared media once a co-user accesses the shared media. Specifically, in these conventional systems, a co-user's access to the shared media ends after the co-user accesses the shared media (e.g., views a shared photo or video). Although these conventional systems provide an effort to reduce clutter, these conventional systems do so at the expense of further increasing the isolation of each post between users. In other words, because users view each media post in isolation, and because each media post is removed automatically after a user accesses the media, participating in a media conversation using these conventional systems is difficult. This is especially the case with a group media conversation involving multiple users.
Accordingly, there are a number of considerations to be made in improving a user experience in relation to creating and participating in multimedia conversations with a group of users.